Starbucks is gearing up to defend itself yet again against claims of forced labor along its supply chain.
On June 18, 2026, International Rights Advocates filed a class action suit in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington alleging that Starbucks knowingly benefitted from the trafficking and forced labor of Brazilian coffee workers. This suit was initially brought in 2025 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia but dismissed in February 2026 on personal jurisdiction grounds. The plaintiffs, one child (represented by his mother) and seven adult men, claim that illegal labor brokers called “Gatos” trafficked them and forced them to harvest coffee in “slavery-like conditions.” The plaintiffs recount facing inhumane working conditions including a lack of protective gear, threats of beating, debt bondage, illegal wage reductions, filthy living quarters, being required to work for forty days without pay, and deprivation of drinking water.
Each plaintiff labors on Cooxupé member plantations. Cooxupé is Brazil’s, and the world’s, largest coffee cooperative with over 13,000 members producing coffee for 49 countries. According to the complaint, Cooxupé and Starbucks have a longstanding relationship. Starbucks lists Cooxupé as a Tier 1 Supplier, and Cooxupé supplies Starbucks with forty percent of its Brazilian coffee exports. Likewise, the complaint notes that Starbucks is the “largest single source of Cooxupé’s income from coffee sales.” Cooxupé members have a history of placement on Brazil’s “Dirty List,” an official registry of employers found by government inspectors to be subjecting employees to “conditions analogous to slavery.” Members of Cooxupé have been on the “Dirty List” consistently for the last three years, including in the most recent issue from April 2026.
The plaintiffs are asserting five claims: two claims under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) for forced labor and trafficking, one claim under Brazilian law for aiding and abetting forced labor and trafficking, and two common law claims for unjust enrichment and negligent supervision. The TVPRA requires that plaintiffs demonstrate that the defendant “knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture.” The plaintiffs argue that Starbucks is participating in a venture with Cooxupé, asserting that the entities are financially interdependent and that Starbucks exerts substantial control over Cooxupé production. Furthermore, the plaintiffs accuse Starbucks of “hiding” behind its Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices program, which certifies supplier farms for compliance with ethical standards, arguing that Starbucks has certified suppliers that were found to have committed human rights violations.
Starbucks will likely move to dismiss on the basis that Cooxupé is not a venture but is merely that of a buyer-seller. This argument prevailed in the 2024 suit Doe v. Apple where the D.C. Circuit held that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the defendants—Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla—were participating in a venture with cobalt suppliers who had violated the TVPRA trafficking and forced labor provisions. The court opined that “participating in a venture” meant more than a buyer-seller relationship, but that the parties were “taking part or sharing in an enterprise or undertaking that involves danger, uncertainty, or risk, and potential gain.”
Plaintiffs have seen some recent success in suits alleging that corporations benefited from human trafficking, particularly in cases involving sex trafficking. In March 2026, a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabling child exploitation and sex trafficking. The court ordered that Meta pay the maximum penalty under New Mexico law, totaling $375m in civil penalties.
The Starbucks litigation will serve as another test of the scope of corporate liability under the TVPRA in global supply chains and may further clarify the extent to which transnational corporations can be held accountable for trafficking and forced labor occurring deep within their supply chain.
